Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

If you haven’t tried roasted garlic, you must. It doesn’t have the bite of raw garlic. It’s rich, buttery and decadent. Yum. I like to spread it on bread for garlic toast, use it as (and in) pizza sauce, and today I’m putting it in mashed potatoes.

This is one of Nate’s favorite recipes of mine. He makes tatos similarly now too, it’s just how mashed potatoes are made in our home!

I’ve never understood the appeal of plain mashed potatoes. Boring! Bland, mushy goop, no matter how fluffy it is, just doesn’t do it for me. I need some flavor in my life!

First, you want to start by roasting your garlic. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and cut the top off of a head (or two) of garlic. Put the garlic on a piece of aluminum foil, sprinkle with salt, drizzle with olive oil and wrap it up!

Roast it for about 30 minutes or until it’s golden brown, soft and fragrant. Then you can either remove the garlic cloves individually (I do this because I want to get every sweet morsel I can), or you can just squeeze the head of garlic so the cloves pop out. Whatever works for you!

Next, prep your potatoes. I know this is a lot of potatoes, but I’m planning to use the leftovers for Shepherd’s Pie so I made extra!

I like Yukon Gold potatoes for this recipe, but baby reds would be good too! Just wash them and cube them up, don’t peel them! The peels add fabulous texture. 🙂

Then put them in a pot of cold water, bring that to a boil, and drain when they’re tender.

Once they’re cooked and drained, it’s time to mash them up! I tend to use whatever I have in the fridge at the time. This time I used:

2 heads of roasted garlic

1/2 cup of part-skim ricotta

1/3 cup of sour cream

2T butter

1/3 c Parmesan cheese

Seasoned salt to taste (I use Lawrys – this ingredient is essential. I repeat, essential!)